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First - chart function

First() returns the value of an expression evaluated with a pivot table's dimension values as they appear in the first column of the current row segment in the pivot table. This function returns NULL in all chart types except pivot tables.

Information noteSorting on y-values in charts or sorting by expression columns in tables is not allowed when this chart function is used in any of the chart's expressions. These sort alternatives are therefore automatically disabled. When you use this chart function in a visualization or table, the sorting of the visualization will revert back to the sorted input to this function.

Syntax:  

first([TOTAL] expr [, offset [, count]])

Arguments:  

Arguments
Argument Description
expression The expression or field containing the data to be measured.
offset

Specifying an offset n, greater than 1 moves the evaluation of the expression n rows further to the right from the current row.

Specifying an offset of 0 will evaluate the expression on the current row.

Specifying a negative offset number makes the First function work like the Last function with the corresponding positive offset number.

count

By specifying a third parameter count greater than 1, the function will return a range of values, one for each of the table rows up to the value of count, counting to the right from the original cell.

TOTAL

If the table is one-dimensional or if the qualifier TOTAL is used as argument, the current column segment is always equal to the entire column.

Defining the aggregation scope

If the pivot table has multiple horizontal dimensions, the current row segment will include only columns with the same values as the current column in all dimension rows except for the row showing the last horizontal dimension of the inter-field sort order.The inter-field sort order for horizontal dimensions in pivot tables is defined simply by the order of the dimensions from top to bottom.

Examples:  

first( sum( Sales ))

first( sum( Sales ), 2 )

first( total sum( Sales )

rangeavg (first(sum(x),1,5)) returns an average of the results of the sum(x) function evaluated on the five leftmost columns of the current row segment.

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